DISTANCE EDUCATION FOR PEOPLE OF THE THIRD AGE

The article raises the question of the need for a systematic study of the phenomenon of continuing education in relation to people of the third age. The source of the proposed conclusions was the analysis of the subjects of dissertation research carried out since the beginning of this century, in the title of which there is a concept of "continuing education"; information sites of research institutions dealing with continuing education, conversations with colleagues from the age cohort of 65-80 years, reflection on their own experience of self-education. The author draws attention to the fact that in the works devoted to education in the third age, attention is focused on the social, organizational aspects of teaching older people. There is no serious pedagogical analysis of education at the end of life as a consequence of the previous individual educational route traversed by a person, the cognitive activity of an aging person is not considered by modern pedagogy as an intrinsic phenomenon. There is a discrepancy between the existence of a diverse practical experience of teaching older people and the lack of a methodology for interdisciplinary research of the aging person as a subject of continuous education. The article formulates a number of promising ideas for the study and subsequent training in the design of (self)education in the third age. In particular, the idea of identifying positive cognitive potentials of older people in the context of the phenomenon of positive aging. The author emphasizes that aging is variable, and the ways of continuing education at this age should correspond to the property of variability and the limited possibility of predicting its effect. For the full-fledged education of people of the third age, specially designed training programs are necessary, taking into account the diversity of educational motivation of students, their gender and cultural characteristics, previous life and educational experience. It is necessary to rethink the role of the head (teacher), who is able to put the listener of any age in an active position of an independent "solver" of problems. The article formulates a number of questions about the educational needs and interests of older people to be studied